I clean the disk and there is less space. Cleaning drive C from unnecessary files and freeing up space
There is probably no need to say that many users of Windows systems very often notice: the space on the hard drive tends to noticeably decrease. One gigabyte is gone, then two, then even more... Why does this happen? If you have free time, that may be quite a lot. However, the further material offered for review presents the most basic situations that can be dealt with using several simple methods.
Why space disappears on drive C: possible reasons
In general, it can be very difficult to name any one exact reason for this phenomenon. It's all about their totality.
As a rule, space is lost on drive C (Windows 10 is used or a system of a lower rank does not matter), mainly due to activity system processes the OS itself, as well as when the user clutters the computer.
However, the most common factors causing such situations are the following:
- availability too large quantity rollback points;
- constant installation of updates;
- use of additional space by paging and hibernation files;
- presence of temporary application files;
- remnants of incorrectly deleted programs;
- system disk errors with the appearance of bad sectors;
- exposure to viruses.
Based on the above reasons, when free space on drive C disappears, you can use standard tools to free it up, and use special optimizer programs or uninstallers. But further emphasis will be placed mostly on the tools of the operating system.
Restore points and backups
Of course, creating restore points or backups in the background is a useful thing (you never know when it will come in handy to restore Windows after an unexpected failure). However, as you understand, all this information is stored in a specially reserved area of the hard drive.
Therefore, if or any other system allows such points or copies to be deleted. This is done through standard menu cleaning the system partition, which can be accessed through the RMB menu on the computer icon and going to the general security settings tab. There is a special button here, after clicking on which the elements to be cleaned will be deleted.
Updates
Constantly installed updates may also be to blame for the loss of free space on your hard drive. Naturally, it is believed that it is not worth disabling their installation, but it is not so simple.
As recent events have shown WannaCry viruses and Petya.A, Microsoft specialists quickly released special update packages that allegedly allow not only to neutralize the threat, but at least to prevent it from penetrating the system.
In addition, some packages for Windows 7 can cause problems with the operating system itself. In this case, it is recommended to remove updates that cause errors, and then disable their automatic installation. At best, you can select the search option and offer downloads and installations.
Virtual memory
It is also possible that space on the hard drive has been lost due to incorrect configuration of virtual memory, which is responsible for the pagefile.sys system component, called the paging file.
To check its size, you need to enter the performance section. Automatic assignment of its size is not always recommended. In principle, if you have 8 GB of RAM or more, the use of virtual memory can be disabled altogether. Believe me, system performance will not be affected by this (tested on a laptop with a Core i7-2620M processor with a frequency of 2.7 GHz and 8 GB of RAM).
Hibernation file
Another reason why space is wasted on the C drive is the constant use of hibernation mode.
This mode works by system component hiberfil.sys and saves data running programs and their use in this moment settings, again, reserving the disk space of the system partition and RAM. By and large, for such situations it is better to use sleep mode rather than hibernation, thereby deleting such a huge file.
To do this, you need to enter the line powercfg /h off in the command console. By the way, after using such a command, the link to hibernation mode disappears even in the main menu of the start button. In principle, on computers with small disks, using this mode is not recommended at all.
Temporary program files
There is only one problem that causes space on the C drive to disappear - undeleted temporary application files. In this case, we are talking not only about web browsers, in which it is necessary to clear the cache, cookies, browsing history, and delete all other temporary components, for example, in the form of saved image thumbnails.
One of the most common situations is the installation of an application directly from the archiver window without first unpacking it onto the hard drive. Moreover, after closing the archiver, you can immediately notice that, apparently, it independently unpacked everything that was inside the archive, which is comparable in size to the full size of the data located there.
Another problem with wasted space on drive C is Photoshop program or any other graphic or video editor. Such utilities create own file swap, completely ignoring the basic system settings. As a result, the user receives an object of quite impressive size, which can be several times larger than the pagefile in volume.
Lost space on drive C: remnants of deleted applications
Another problem is that when uninstalling programs, Windows' own uninstaller does not perform well. This concerns the fact that it does not always delete absolutely everything that was associated with the program. And if earlier, it was proposed to remove some elements yourself, now the system simply reports that the remaining components will be deleted at the next reboot.
But nothing like that happens. Files and folders remain, as well as keys system registry(and the OS loading speed depends on its size). In this case optimal solution will be used special utilities, which provide for in-depth scanning of residual elements ( Revo Uninstaller, iObit Uninstaller and the like).
Bad sectors
Unfortunately, the appearance of errors in the system partition, after which free space on the hard drive decreases, is also no exception. The trouble is that bad sectors can sometimes simply not be read or recognized.
Thus, the system simply ignores them. Alternatively, you can run a scan of the hard drive, but it is advisable not to do this using standard tool, and from the command line by typing chkdsk c: /x/f/r or some variation. This technique works both in a running system and when booting from removable media.
If HDD has damage of a physical nature, nothing can be done about it, although it is believed that the most extreme and final means of disk recovery can be a program that (according to its creators) can remagnetize the hard drive, which, however, raises quite serious doubts.
Viruses
Finally, even many viruses are capable of attacking disk space. Most often this is due to advertising threats, spyware or spam. The problem here is that most of these hijackers are able to integrate into the operating system and into all browsers, after which a huge amount of computer garbage remains on the disk, both in the form of temporary files and in the form of their own elements.
It's best to fight things like this disk programs(Rescue Disk), which can start even before the OS boots and detect even deeply hidden threats or those integrated into the system.
Instead of an afterword
As we see, there can be quite a lot of reasons, as well as ways to eliminate the consequences. And so it can be absolutely impossible to immediately determine what was the root cause of the reduction in free space. Therefore, you will have to act, to put it mildly, at random, finding out what this situation might be connected with initially.
But don't despair. At least one of the suggested methods will work. True, you will have to carry out the actions according to the list presented above and exactly in the sequence in which they were described.
As a definite conclusion, it can be noted that most of the loss of space on the hard drive is associated with the functioning of system processes and programs, as well as incorrect removal of an application, after which a bunch of computer garbage remains in the system, which can be very problematic to get rid of. However, you can also use optimizer programs, although even here no one can give a complete guarantee of removing residual files and folders. There is a semblance of cleaning, but does it all really look that good?
Naturally, it cannot be ruled out, but they do not always occur, and the appearance of errors on the hard drive can only be associated with short-term failures, for example, during a sudden power outage or a forced reboot when frozen (especially during the installation of update packages).
Hard drives are getting bigger and bigger, but somehow they always fill up. This is especially noticeable if you use solid state drive(SSD), which offers much less hard drive space than traditional mechanical hard drives.
Empty trash
Fig No. 1. Empty trash.When you delete items, such as files and photos, from your computer, they are not immediately deleted. Instead, they are placed in the Recycle Bin and continue to take up valuable hard drive space. To empty the Trash, go to your desktop, right-click on the Trash and select Empty Trash. A warning pop-up will appear if you are sure you want to permanently delete the contents of your Trash. Click "Yes" to continue.
Disk Cleanup
Windows has a built-in Disk Cleanup utility (exactly called Disk Cleanup) that will help you clean up space by deleting various files including temporary Internet files, dump files from system error and even previous ones Windows installations, which may still be on your disk.
Fig No. 2. Disk cleanup. You can find Disk Cleanup in the Start menu under All Apps > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. Select the drive you want to clean, click OK.
Click the Disk Cleanup button in the disk properties window.
Figure No. 3.0. Disk cleanup. After clicking on the “Clean up Disk” button, the Disk Cleanup program will calculate how much space you can free up. This process can last from a few seconds to several minutes. In general, the more cluttered your hard drive is, the longer it takes to scan.
Figure No. 3.1. Site assessment. Select the file types you want to delete and click OK. This includes temporary files, log files, files in the Recycle Bin, and other unimportant files. When you're ready, click OK to delete. Make sure you check the drawers for each of the file categories you want to clean out. Confirm that you want to delete these files.
You can also clear system files, which do not appear in the list here. Click clean system files button if you also want to delete system files.
Fig No. 4. Clean up system files. Wait while Disk Cleanup calculates how much space you can free up. This process can last from a few seconds to several minutes. In general, the more cluttered your hard drive is, the longer it takes to scan.
Fig No. 5. Site assessment. After this, you will have the “Advanced” tab in which you can clear “System Restore and Shadow Copies” to remove system recovery data. This button deletes everything except the most recent restore point, so make sure your computer is working properly before using it - you won't be able to use older system restore points.
Figure No. 6. Release extra bed on disk. You can also clear “Programs and Features” by clicking on the top “Clear” button shown in Figure 6, or follow the following path “Start”> “Control Panel”> “Programs and Features” or “Uninstall Programs”.
The following window will open in which you can remove all unused or unnecessary programs.
Fig No. 7. Removing programs. Wait until the list of all programs installed on your computer is updated. Look at programs that take up a lot of space and are not used at all. Select the program and click the Uninstall button.
Expand drive "C" with drive "D" without third-party software.
This method is only suitable if you do not have important data on the “d” drive and you can format it all. Open Management Windows disks. Press the key combination “Win + R” on the keyboard, the “Run” window will appear, enter the command “diskmgmt.msc” and press the Enter key.
In the window that opens, we rip out the disk on which there is no necessary information and right-clicking the mouse will open the properties window where you need to select “Delete Volume”.
After this, free space will appear in which you need to delete partitions to expand drive “C” by right-clicking on free space and select “Delete partitions”.
The Volume Expansion Wizard will open, allowing you to increase the size of simple or spanned volumes. Click the Next button. In the next window you need to select the size by which you can increase the “C” drive. Next, click the “next” and “ready” button. And we see that there is more space on drive C.
Next you need to create new disk D. Right-click on “Undistributed” and select “create new volume..." > "Next", select the disk size "D" > "Next" > Select the drive letter, "Next" > "Next" > "Ready".
Video on how to enlarge drive C
Good day, dear readers, admirers and other individuals. Have you ever noticed that you are running out of space on your computer?
As a rule, this is not a consequence of a virus or your carelessness, but simply a recovery service Windows systems, incorrectly configured paging file and others. Often the reason for a place selling is also a high browser cache value or an OS cluttered with all sorts of software garbage.
How to find out why a space disappears in Windows
As I said, there are several sources where space can go missing.
Let's look at them in order.
First, the recovery system. The fact is that Microsoft, taking care of its users, made a recovery system in Windows, which greatly influences the fact that your location disappears (although in fact it is simply “hidden”).
What it does (if you haven’t changed the settings) is that at some intervals (especially in the case of installing programs\games\) it makes restore points, which you can always use in case of a system crash/failure. The question is, are you using this recovery system?
For example, I have a hard time remembering the last time I had to do this. Moreover, the benefits of it are very doubtful. In turn, these points take up up to 12% of the space on each hard drive, which, you see, is a lot (especially on large disks). Therefore, here's how to get rid of (or at least reconfigure) the amount of space occupied by recovery points.
How to get back space on your computer disk
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel-> System -> System Restore
For Windows Vista/Windows 7/8/10:
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel-> System -> System protection
Here you can either completely disable system recovery, or distribute the points on which disks and how much space they will take up.
I cannot recommend that you completely disable recovery, because... I don’t know how often you encounter system problems and resort to recovery, but personally, I have it disabled because... I consider it a dubious tool that takes up quite a lot of space, especially since you can always use the " " article to protect and restore data.
For those who want to leave it (system restore), but configure it as competently as possible and make it so that they no longer have to look for where the space disappears:
- It is advisable that they should not be on the disk with the operating system at all or should take up as little space as possible;
- You don't need more than 3 restore points, i.e. You shouldn’t set the maximum percentage even on several disks. 3-6% on one or two disks will be enough, and then, in my opinion, this will be a lot.
By the way, before configuring these parameters, the system had already created a number of restore points, so it would be a good idea to delete them. To do this, open “My Computer”, right-click on the hard drive the place where you need to clear it and select “Properties” from the drop-down list.
In the window that appears, click on the button “Disk Cleanup” – “Advanced” – “ System Restore” – “Clear” – “Yes” – “Ok”.
Or, if you have Windows 7/Vista, you can clear the space occupied by restore points using the " button Configure - Delete", which is located on the "System Protection" tab (see path above):
This is what they call time.
Let's go to point two.
About the paging file and where space disappears
When the operating system does not have enough , it begins to unload programs into the page file, i.e. a file on the hard drive that serves as a kind of RAM, but much slower. Accordingly, the size of the paging file may vary, depending on the amount of RAM you have.
As a standard, the size of the paging file is 2-4 times larger than the amount of physical RAM, but this size can be changed, however, often to the detriment of performance (especially if there is little RAM). He also answers the question of where the place disappears, because he occupies this very place with all his strength.
Configure the location and size of the paging file to hard drives here:
- Start -> Settings -> Control Panel-> System -> Advanced > Performance > Options > Advanced > Virtual memory-> Edit
I still don’t recommend disabling the entire paging file, but redistributing or reducing it is always welcome. I wrote more about the paging file and its configuration in the article, so read it to set the correct numbers.
Cache, trash and where does the space go?
During operation of the system, programs, browsers and other things, constantly create a so-called cache, i.e. temporary auxiliary files, which (files) they periodically forget to delete. Also, after removing various programs, they usually leave behind garbage traces of files, which also sometimes weigh quite a lot.
Therefore, I recommend that you constantly clean Tempory Internet Files, browser caches, program traces and other all kinds of garbage. I wrote how to do this in the article "". I strongly recommend you read it, because it often frees up a lot of space.
Other manual cleaning
First, turn on the display hidden files. To do this, we follow the path “ My Computer – Tools – Folder Options – View – Show hidden files and folders – OK”.
Next, open the disk with the system and find the Documents and Settings folder there. It contains your profile files and some system\program settings. The whole point is that most programs, especially if you deleted them incorrectly, i.e. without use, let’s say, they leave behind a bunch of traces and debris, which sometimes cannot be cleaned out even by Ccleaner. You have to dig with your hands. The most cluttered folders in my opinion are:
- C:\Documents and Settings\name\Application Data;
- C:\Documents and Settings\name\Local Settings\Application Data.
where C:\ is the drive where the system is located, and the name is your name in the system.
Carefully rummage through these folders and delete folders with the names of programs that have not been on your computer for a long time.
You can find the remaining thick folders yourself by selecting one\group of folders in Documents and Settings and checking their volume by clicking the right mouse button and selecting “Properties” from the list. As a rule, when traveling like this, you can find a lot of all sorts of junk that was forgotten (or deliberately left behind) by program uninstallers.
In general, to make it clearer what exactly is taking up how much space on which disk and how to delete it, I recommend reading this article of mine: “”, a program in which will clearly allow you to identify what is gnawing off treasured megabytes from the disk.
Afterword
Something like this.
I hope that the article was useful to you and that you cleared and saved heaps of valuable megabytes.
As always, I will be glad to see your additions, reviews, questions, etc., which you can safely write in the comments to this entry.
PS: As a good alternative to the above-mentioned CCleaner, I can suggest you use a wonderful program for cleaning garbage and all sorts of “forgotten” miscellaneous things.
Ordinary situation. You work at the computer for a long time, not paying attention to the amount of occupied space on local disks, and then the moment comes when there is no space left on the computer at all.
Some people have one local drive “C”, while others have 2 of them, even 3, and they can all be filled to capacity. But that’s not the point, it’s about which folders usually get clogged the most, i.e. which ones should be checked and cleaned immediately.
Because usually it is the main local drive “C” where the system is installed that is subject to file assault. Unless, of course, the location of some standard folders Windows, for example, "Downloads", "Videos" and other user folders.
And a C drive that is full to capacity is not good. Because the system constantly accesses it and the space is needed for the correct operation of its various functions. At a minimum, a paging file is written to drive C, the state of the system is saved there when it is sent into deep sleep (hibernation mode), update files are downloaded and installed.
If space becomes critically small, this may cause problems in Windows work, from slowdowns to serious failures!
A step-by-step plan for finding the most crowded folders
There's a way to look through special program WinDirStat, which folders and files take up the most space on your computer and where they are located.
Although the program is convenient, not all beginners, despite my instructions for it, will immediately understand how to work with it correctly in order to quickly analyze the structure of files and folders on the computer. Therefore, I propose another option: manually check those main folders that, as a rule, are the most clogged for users. Here's the plan...
1. We look at the size of the system drive “C” and how much space is occupied on it
To begin with, if you don’t know exactly what the volume of your system disk is and how much space is already occupied on it, let’s check it. After all, it may be that your “C” drive is simply initially very small in volume, and then the solution should no longer be sought in deleting, it would seem unnecessary files, but in increasing the total capacity of the “C” drive, and this is a separate topic.
In this case, use the steps below to check how much space the main ones take up Windows folders(and you can also check it using the WinDirStat program) and if they take up little space and your disk is almost full, then it means your disk is simply small capacity and all its place is occupied by the system itself and installed programs.
Change disk size standard means Windows cannot. This can be done, for example, using the program.
Go to the “This PC” section and there, under each disk, its total size and how much space is free will be displayed:
Or right-click on the “C” drive (hereinafter referred to as “RMB”) and select “Properties”:
The “General” tab will display the disk volume (capacity), as well as the amount of used and free space.
Now you can estimate how busy your “C” drive is as a whole and how big it is. Otherwise, maybe it makes sense to expand the disk space, and not clean it of unnecessary things :)
2. Find the folders that most often take up the most space
We check the system user folders one by one: “Desktop”, “Downloads”, “Images”, “Videos”, “Documents”, “Music”.
It is in these folders that users most often store the bulk of their files and sometimes forget about it. For example, files from the Internet are automatically downloaded into the “Downloads” folder (if you have not specified another folder through your browser) and many of these files become unnecessary after a while (for example, all sorts of installation files of various programs). And users sometimes forget about this folder, thinking that nothing significant or “heavy” is stored there.
All these folders are located in the system user partition under which you are working.
To find these folders, go to your local drive “C:” (where your system is installed), open the “Users” folder. There you will see a folder with the name of your user under which you work in the system, for example, for me it is “Vladimir”.
This folder will display all the user folders I mentioned above, unless you or someone else has changed their default location.
Alternative ways:
3. Check the size of the user’s folders
Having found the user’s folders, we check one by one how much disk space each of them takes up.
To do this, right-click on the folder and select “Properties”:
On the “General” tab, in the “On disk” line, the actual size of the space occupied on your local disk by this folder will be displayed. For example, in my example, the “Video” folder takes up 485 GB.
Check all the above user folders in this way and then you will have a picture before your eyes: which of these folders are seriously eating up a lot of space on your disk.
4. Check how much space the AppData folder takes up
In Windows there is a folder where data is accumulated installed programs on your computer, as well as some system files intended for the user you are working under. This folder is called AppData and is also located on the “C” drive in your user’s folder.
To go to this folder and check how much space it takes up, you must first turn on the display of hidden files and folders (because the AppData folder is initially hidden and you will not see it).
If you don’t know how to enable the display of hidden files and folders, then use the information from this article.
Having turned on the display of hidden files and folders, go to the “C” drive, open the “Users” folder and then the folder with your user. You will see the “AppData” folder in it:
Check its size through properties just as you did with user folders. If this folder takes up more than 10 GB, then it would be better to double-check everything in this case, how much each of the folders inside it takes up. Perhaps a folder with some program that you have not used for a long time, or which has already been deleted from your computer, is eating up a lot of space. Or these are simply accumulated temporary files from one of the programs that should be deleted.
Conclusion
By following these steps, you will probably find a folder or several that takes up significant disk space. Then you need to move these folders/files to another local drive or external hard drive, or delete the unnecessary ones.
Or you will understand that you, in principle, have yourself system disk a very small volume, which is not enough for normal operation of the system and storage of your files. In this case, you need to expand this local disk, as I mentioned above.
For a more accurate analysis of occupied space, use the WinDirStat program!
If you liked my article, repost it on social networks and leave comments. I will be glad to communicate! :)
So, you're running out of space on your system partition and you're frustrated by the ugly behavior of Windows? Don’t rush to blame the operating system, but try to calmly figure out why this is happening.
The lack of space on the system partition is primarily a concern for users who have allocated too little disk space for it. Right out of the box, modern Windows takes up a lot more space than XP. If you skimp on matches, you risk making these 6 mistakes!
Let's look at the moments that have the greatest impact on the disappearance of disk space.
Swap and hibernation files
Not everyone takes into account that the amount of RAM installed in computers is growing, and therefore the sizes of paging and hibernation files are growing. Standard configuration Windows file Swap is 1.5 times the amount of RAM, and hibernation is 0.75. If you have 8GB RAM, immediately after installing the system, these two files will take up 18GB.
If you don't use all the RAM in your daily work, you can reduce the size of the page file. On a desktop PC, you can disable hibernation and use sleep.
Installed programs
Many popular programs have gained a fair amount of weight in recent years - this also needs to be taken into account (including when deciding on the size of the system partition).
Remove unused programs (appwiz.cpl) to free up disk space. After removal unnecessary program it makes sense to delete her data from the folders %AppData% And %LocalAppData% ().
When you install programs, they can copy their installation files to your hard drive so that you can restore programs or add/remove them later functionality(and sometimes such copying is done simply “just in case”). Unfortunately, there is no supported way to clean out the Installer folder.
If you like to test new programs, you will inevitably clog up the system, since the regular removal of an application does not always clean up all the “tails”. To experiment with software It's best to use a virtual machine.
Installed updates
As you use the operating system, the free space decreases. When you install updates, the system creates backups replacement files so that the update can be removed if problems arise. However, modern Windows can delete old copies.
The longer you have worked in the system, the stronger the cleaning effect.
Temporary files of downloaded updates
Downloaded updates are saved in the Windows\SoftwareDistribution folder. Its size does not grow uncontrollably because the system deletes old files as new ones are downloaded. In the absence of problems, the folder size can reach 700 - 1000MB, and in case of system problems, it can be several gigabytes.
To clean out the SoftwareDistribution folder, run command line as administrator and paste the code below into it.
Net stop wuauserv net stop BITS net stop CryptSvc cd %systemroot% ren SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old net start wuauserv net start bits net start CryptSvc rd /s /q SoftwareDistribution.old
Restore points
Identify the folders that take up the most space
Use a program that displays the distribution of files on the disk in graphical form.
Consider NTFS service files
NTFS metadata rarely causes significant space wastage, but its presence must be taken into account when calculating used disk space. In Windows 8 and later, the summary report is displayed by the command
Fsutil volume allocationreport C:
Determine the application that is clogging your disk
Sometimes cleaning helps only for a while, after which the place disappears again as a result of some program. Knowing the folder in which the files are accumulated (see above), you can easily identify the program.
Make sure there are no viruses
If you followed all the recommendations in the article, but were unable to find the missing gigabytes, general recommendations are unlikely to help you. In this case, be sure to do a thorough virus scan using a special method (even if you have an anti-virus program installed and regularly updated).
If nothing helps you, all that remains is to advise you to ask a question in the OSZone forum. The article is discussed in this thread.
